Clinicians of a more humanistic persuasion, such as Harry Stack Sullivan, have taken a much more positive view of homosexual and bisexual adaptations. A notable example of an enlightened clinician is Carl Rogers. Appearing last year as the Burton lecturer for the Graduate School of Education, Rogers stated his support for sexual variations, which he termed "lifestyles"; he repeated his belief that public opinion is in a process of positive change toward tolerance and acceptance.
Society and the Healthy Homosexual, by George Weinberg, a heterosexual psychiatrist, is a very readable book for anyone, and articulates the progressive perspective. Enlightened clinicians such as Edwin Barker, associate professor of Education and Clinical Psychology, tend to deny the validity of conversion treatment or alleged "cure" for homoerotic behavior. They believe that the clinic, if it takes any role, should assist in overcoming guilt and internalizing oppression, and help toward positive self concept and life adaptation.
Anthropology and Modern Sex Research
In several ways, new views in psychology have followed the previous leadership of Anthropology, a discipline which profited from cross-cultural scope, and therefore more cosmopolitan perspectives. The American Anthropological Association has issued a statement describing homosexual and bisexual variations as common across many cultures, and well within human adaptations which are quite normal. Distinguished anthropologists who have persuasively articulated this position include Ashley Montagu and Margaret Mead, who has stated that she considers fear and condemnation of sexual variation to be a destructive malad-justment.
Modern sex research, as represented by John Gagnon in Human Sexualities, has greatly expanded the scientific understanding of bisexuality, homosexuality and variations thereof. Interdisciplinary investigations of human sexual expression as it appears in real life, convey a vastly more positive view of sexual variation than do older generalities derived from narrow and unrepresentative clinical cases.
In a cross-cultural social analysis of self-affirmed male homosexuals in Denmark, Holland and America, Martin Weinberg and Colin Williams (1974) accumulated a considerable amount of interesting data. Much of their evidence tends to contradict popular stereotypes.
In their sample populations, 69 per cent of the males have had long-term affectional relationships with other males; 56 per cent have had sexual relationships with women; 19 per cent are actively bisexual (probably a low figure considering the sample is derived from Gay milieux). Older homosexuals in these samples are happier and better adjusted than younger Gays, and finally, homosexual men who are acculturated to Gay social life have more positive social relations with heterosexuals, and fewer negative expectations. These findings indicate that what may be publicly visible does not represent what we really are. Heterosexuals and homosexuals are in fact far more alike than different.
For Heterosexual Readers
This brief review is merely an attempt to correct some misconceptions, not an indictment. You are not responsible for the past, but the future surely belongs to all of us. Hatreds and fears are destructive self-deceptions, and they exact a human cost.
We who vary sexually remain largely invisible to heterosexuals, yet we represent the same human diversity. Many of us now remain invisible not from guilt or shame, but simply because this adaptation is vastly more convenient. Our sexuality is certainly not the chief organizing principle of our lives. We have the same variety of aspiration, achievement, and human warmth. We are everywhere that you are, and share large parts of your lives: in school, in your sport, on the U.S. Olympic team, in business, in your home, and even in your family, in other words: the kid next door, someone's brother, sister, daughter or son.
We know you intimately, we have grown up with you, and we have shared your lives, become your friends--in so many ways we are part of you.
If you maintain a social conscience and oppose oppression, don't stand by and let it happen.